Outbound Jon
From: Eddie_K_Lee@hotmail.com - July 2
This is from alt.music.yes:
Jon Anderson will be guesting on the new album "Outbound" by Bela Fleck and the Flecktones. For those of you unfarmiliar with the Flecktones, I highly recommend picking up a CD. They are, in my opinion, one of the most highly inventive groups around. Their live shows are unbelievable... they are incredible musicians, and funny too! For more info, check out www.flecktones.com. Its really gratifying for me to see a merger between my two favorite musical acts... Go Jon!!
Oh yeah, the album is due out July 25.
Bela Fleck info - Outbound,Jon presence
From: Bruce Dietel - July 5
Forwarding this as posted from the Bela Fleck newsgroup (alt.music.bels-fleck). There is also a reply directly from Bela regarding the ELP Hoedown influence in another post. For any Philly fans, Bela has a date at the Keswick Theater in the fall.
I've spent the weekend absorbing an advance copy of Outbound (street date is 7/25). I swear I don't know of any other artist (except John Zorn) who can cover so much of a range of genres so effectively in a single disc. Wendell will be happy to hear this studio version of Hoedown, and in the promo sheet of comments that came with the CD, Bela cites ELP's version as the one he got to know first of this work. With Adrian Belew's and Jon Anderson's presence on the disc as well, Bela has strongly referenced three of my favorite bands from back in my early/mid'70s teens, ELP, Yes and King Crimson. Anderson is on "Moment So Close," and it sounds at times like a Yes tune from the "90125" era.
Speaking of Zorn, Bela's "Lover's Leap," one of my favorites on the disc, is one that Bela says he would have shied away from doing a few years ago.
The press sheet describes it as a Weill/cabaret type tune, but I hear it more as the off kilter film noir-ish type Zorn does so well. Great stuff. I also am partial to "That Old Thing," which turns up as the last full tune as well as a prelude disc-opener.
I also like the horn arrangement of that opening prelude-strongly reminds me of how the classic "Monk's Music" LP began, with a passage from a spiritual arranged for horns only, before slamming into "Well You Needn't." In Bela's case, he slams into "Hoedown."
Not much more time to report right now, but I can say there's something on here for everyone (it clocks in at 1 hour, incidentally). I would definitely rank it in the top half of Flecktones projects. I certainly rate it well ahead of Left of Cool and 3 Flew.
One thing I am excited about are the details of Bela's new contract: 5 albums, two Flecktones projects on Columbia, two Bela 'classical' projects on Sony Classical, and one Bela Jazz album. Yes, I like the Flecktones, but they have never been my favorite context for Bela, and this contract means that should be hearing an even wider range from Bela with Columbia/Sony than we did during his WB period.
From Steve's Guitar Rondo website: http://stevehowe.com
Steve Howe is pleased to be offering exclusive digital downloads from his site. Along with the music downloads, you can read Steve's remarks about each track and see exclusive photos taken by Steve himself. The music downloads are powered by Liquid Audio and include a special edition Steve Howe Music Player faceplate (shown below). Once downloaded, you will be able to record your own music CD through any of the CDRW devices supported by Liquid Audio technology.
Click on the links below to download and play the selections. To listen and purchase the downloads you will need the Liquid Audio Player. Each package is $2.50.
The first 3 packages includes:
o Breakout/Voyage of Discovery (6.7MB)
*************************************************
The first 2 packages were from his "Guitar Player" CD and the third one was from his "Guitar Plus" CD.
A nice newspaper review of the St. Louis show can be found at http://www.postnet.com/postnet/entertainment/reviews.nsf/ByDocID/6F96882EDF07D52986256910003774BA.
In this morning's Dallas Morning News, there was a nice review of last night's show. You can find it here: http://dallasnews.com/entertainment/105689_YES03.html
In typical grandiose fashion, Yes is calling its current concert trek The Masterworks Tour, which is another way of saying it's doing an evening of the very, very, very long songs that won them legions of art-rock fans in the 70's-and the derision of just about every punk band that ever was.
And, I have to say, often deservedly so. Art-rock of the sort Yes played was always of dubious value, simply because the pretentiousness and long-winded instrumental passages often didn't prove their worth in good music.
I was reminded of this less than 45 minutes into the bands Sunday night show at the Smirnoff Music Center, when vocalist Jon Anderson, guitarist Steve Howe, bassist Chris Squire, drummer Alan White and relative newcomer Igor Khoroshev on keyboards launched into 'Gates of Delirium' from the awful 1974 LP 'Relayer'.
'Delirium' is art-rock at its most scattered, knotty, unpleasant-and long. Very long. The band noodled and bashed away for 22 endless minutes, thereby reminding me why I began listening to Graham Parker, the Sex Pistols and the Clash in the first place.
This and the equally awful 'Ritual' were what made this evening, at times, so interminably boring. This wasn't always true by any means-'Starship Trooper' retained some of its spacy charm, and the quiet, quick acoustic-guitar-and-vocals interlude 'Leaves of Green' was geniunely pretty.
But by sidestepping most of the pop material that balanced the longer stuff, this edition of Yes could only be enjoyed by the really hard-core.
And there aren't many of them left. Even though ticket sales were limited to reserved seats, the show was far from sold out. It would seem that Yes is running out of ways to repackage its history to keep even its longtime fans interested.
Kansas opened the evening with an hour-yes, a full, God-forsaken hour-of old and, sad to say, new stuff. The bands conceit was always that it was a Midwestern version of bands such as Yes, Genesis and Jethro Tull, which was a lousy idea to start with and never got any better. More than 20 years on, sitting through this without copious amounts of pot and alcohol was an endurance contest.
Dave Ferman can be reached by sending him an email at dfer@star-telegram.com or call him at 817-390-7839.
Visit http://www.patrickmoraz.com/ for MP3 samples of his new CD.
A long interview with Patrick Moraz appears at http://www.galeon.com/progvisions/main/pV_.htm
Steve Howe digital download
From: Eddie Lee
o The Moment of Release/Secrets (6.9MB)
o Soft Caress/Code of Silence (6.0MB ) Review from St. Louis Post Dispatch
From: Roy DeRousse [roylayer@yahoo.com] - July 3Dallas paper gives Yes show good review!
From: Dave Westbay [dwwestbay@mail.com] - July 3Yes is just a Really Long Way of Saying No to Rock
Ft. Worth Star Telegram - July 3, 2000
by Dave Fermanwww.patrickmoraz.com
From: Jorge Murillo Interview with Patrick Moraz
From: Roy DeRousse [roylayer@yahoo.com] July 20yessng@yahoo.com | Moonrise Mountain | Yes
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